In the attic of dreams. The personal archives of the father of paradoxical sleep
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences July 1, 2024 Michaël Roelli
Michel Jouvet (1925-2017), a pioneering French neuroscientist of sleep and dreams, remains largely unknown outside sleep medicine despite major awards. Often reduced to his cat experiments and discovery of paradoxical sleep, his broader work includes neurophysiological, ethnological, and psychological studies of sleep and dreams, clinical contributions, two novels, and a collection of personal dream accounts and drawings. This article uses unpublished archives to illuminate these little-known aspects, revealing his hidden links with 19th-century scientific oneirology and the paradoxes within his legacy.